A request for a conditional use permit to build a 255-foot wireless communication tower a mile northwest of Staplehurst in Township 12 was denied by the Seward County Planning Commission after the applicant was asked to consider existing towers instead.
But the applicant, when given information on a tower commissioners said did not appear to have been considered, said the tower the board pointed to a few miles from the proposed site was never built. Other towers in the area do not have the altitude needed, he said.
Darren Hunter of Grinnell Group spoke to the commission on behalf of The Towers, LLC, the group seeking the permit. He said the tower is for Verizon, but AT&T, T-Mobile, and possibly other company’s equipment will also be placed on it.
Hunter said the tower is intended to help Verizon fill coverage gaps that are not fully served now, but he did not have specific numbers on how many customers might be affected. The gaps are monitored by dropped calls, customer complaints and other measures, he said.
The commission voted 4-1 to deny the application with Chair Dale Niemann abstaining. Niemann said he lives in the area and there are cell phone coverage gaps that affect him and other area residents.
The application was scheduled to be on the Seward County Commissioners agenda Sept. 29 for further consideration.
County Board of Commissioners member Raegan Hain, who also lives near the proposed site, wrote a personal letter to the planning commission opposing the tower, citing the requirement that new towers cannot be built within five miles of existing towers.
No one other than Niemann spoke for or against the tower at the public hearing.
Hunter said if the company cannot build in that area, it will likely move on to tower needs in another area where preparatory work on locations has been done.
“At the end of the day, we understand that we will get more people on a tower in Lincoln than we will in Staplehurst,” he said.
Decommissioning topic raised
Commissioners also considered their options related to conditional use permits and what happens to livestock barns or other conditional use-related structures if the property owner stops using them for the purpose intended.
Commissioner Sue Medinger noted the recent case before the planning commission and board of commissioners in which a new property owner was seeking a conditional use permit for a vehicle salvage business using barns built with a conditional use permit for turkey production. That conditional use was denied.
Medinger asked if there was something the county could do to assure some kind of decommissioning of such facilities when they are no longer in use so the buildings do not sit unused.
Niemann said the property owner has the responsibility to take care of what is on the property, which could last another 30 years whether it is used for its original purpose or not.
The Seward County Board of Commissioners usually adds a condition to the conditional uses it grants that limits the permitted use to the current property owner. A new property owner would have to re-apply for the conditional use permit even if they were continuing with the same kind of operation that required it.
Niemann said a suggestion could possibly be made to add decommissioning to the conditions attached to such special use permits in the future.
But Medinger said property owners just leaving unused buildings is not a solution either.
“We have approved all these chicken barns and we could see this happen over and over again,” Medinger said. “This county should be taking a look at how to keep this situation from happening again.”
Niemann said much of the property where barns have been built would likely revert to farmland.
The topic of decommissioning structures also came up at the Seward County Commissioners’ public hearing and discussion of the county’s proposed revisions to its zoning regulations on Sept. 22. That discussion was specific to communication towers.
One of the points made there was that some counties require an escrow account for possible decommissioning needs. But if a business has financial trouble, the escrow account could possibly be used to pay other debts with the county given lower priority.
Keith Marvin of Marvin Consulting said the county’s regulations say when a tower is decommissioned the above-ground section and at least a set number of feet below ground must be removed.
He said the underground portion can be significantly deeper than the decommissioning requirement reflects.
The revised zoning regulations the county is now considering include a section governing decommissioning of renewable energy installations and requires a plan for decommissioning for conditional use permits, but does not outline details for such permits.
Also at the meeting, the commission approved a short form plat to divide a property in Township 12.
